No need to pay subscription charges for WhatsApp, service goes free

Facebook-owned WhatsApp on Monday announced the waiving of its annual subscription over the next few weeks.

In its official blog post, WhatsApp said, “For many years, we have asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we have grown, we have found that this approach hasn’t worked well.”

WhatsApp has made it clear that their millions of users will not be subjected to advertisements and the App will remain ads free.

“Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today’s announcement means we are introducing third-party advertisements. The answer is no,” said the WhatsApp blog post.

Clearing air about its revenue model, WhatsApp said that from 2016, it would test tools for replacing text messages and phone calls communication between business organisations and peoples.

“We will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organisations that you want to hear from.”

WhatsApp promised that the software will be free from third-party advertisement and spam. WhatsApp said, “That could mean communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight. We all get these messages elsewhere today – through text messages and phone calls.”

Another objective of WhatsApp is to reach out to many WhatsApp users without access to debit or credit card across countries.

“Many WhatsApp users don’t have a debit or credit card number and they worried they would lose access to their friends and family after their first year,” said the blog post. Social Giant Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 from the Ukrainian immigrants to America Jan Koum and Brian Acton for $19 billion.

Both Koum and Acton were former employees of technology company Yahoo.